NEW RESOURCES

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: The inside story of how the Offshore Leaks Database became a go-to resource on offshore finance. “After steadily expanding the database since 2013 with information from 2016’s Panama Papers project and four other leaks, ICIJ today releases the last batch of data, which includes new data on more than 9,000 offshore companies, foundations and trusts, from the Pandora Papers, the massive leak from 14 so-called offshore service providers that powered last year’s largest-ever journalism collaboration of the same name. As we close the final chapter of the Pandora Papers in the Offshore Leaks Database, we share what it took to bring it to life — and why it has become an essential tool in the global fight to dismantle offshore secrecy.

GCN: Need help finding broadband grants? Tool helps sift through opportunities. “US Ignite, a nonprofit dedicated to building the foundation for smart cities, developed the open data tool to improve access to its Federal Funding Opportunities database. Smart city and broadband grants also can be filtered by sector, such as big data, infrastructure, digital equity energy, health care, education, public safety, innovation and information technologies.”

Syracuse University: IVMF Digital Library Launched. “Syracuse University’s D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF), Syracuse University Libraries and the School of Information Studies (iSchool) partnered to create and launch the IVMF Digital Library… It includes IVMF-authored publications and research, as well as curated collections of external research, articles and information from reputable sources. The digital library was developed for veteran entrepreneurs, employers of veterans and policymakers as a single source, open access information resource.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Android Police: Google is testing a new intelligent shortcut in Chrome. “Google Chrome’s interface is mostly fully matured. The layout and design haven’t substantially changed the past few years, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to anytime soon—the highly anticipated bottom bar interface, which would have been the biggest change since the launch of the mobile browser, was sunset before it ever became a standard feature. There are always some smaller tweaks Google is working on, though, and the latest in line is a new button in the app bar next to the address field, intelligently adjusting based on your usage of the browser.”

Travel+Leisure: Google Has a New Tool That Helps Travelers Find a Hotel Near a Landmark, Attraction, or Event. “Now, you can … quickly find places to stay within walking or driving distance of a particular landmark, attraction, or event, making it simple to find the right place to stay near a wedding venue, or any other event you’ve got going on, whether it’s a family reunion or a music festival. You can also use the tool to find a hotel near the top landmark on your travel list — which might mean searching for Paris hotels in walking distance of the Eiffel Tower.”

USEFUL STUFF

Global Investigative Journalism Network: 10 Lessons from Bellingcat’s Logan Williams on Digital Forensic Techniques. “Logan Williams is a data scientist on the Bellingcat investigative technology team. He spoke about digital forensic reporting labs at the 2022 International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy. GIJN attended the panel and caught up with Williams afterward to hear his top tips and advice for using digital forensic techniques in your reporting.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

TrekMovie: The Roddenberry Archive Recreates Sets From First ‘Star Trek’ Pilot “The Cage”. “The Gene Roddenberry estate is developing ‘The Roddenberry Archive,’ which is a multi-decade collaboration to collect and preserve Gene Roddenberry’s legacy at the highest levels of fidelity and historical accuracy. A number of Star Trek veterans are involved in the project, including artists Denise and Mike Okuda, Doug Drexler, and Daren Dochterman who are all working with the cloud graphics company OTOY. Their first project is to create a 1:1 virtual experience of The Motion Picture USS Enterprise.”

University of Exeter: Experts to establish new archive of Kurdistan’s culture, history and politics. “An international team of experts are establishing a major new archive of Kurdistan’s culture, history and politics. University of Exeter academics are working closely with colleagues from leading Kurdish archival repositories, the Kurdish Heritage Institute (کەلەپووری کورد ئەنستیتیوتی) and the Zheen Centre for Documentation and Research (بنکەی ژین) on the project.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Radio New Zealand: Coroner signals social media’s role in mosque terror attacks a priority for inquest. “The coroner’s inquest into the mosque terror attacks, in which 51 people were killed, will look into the role of social media in the killer’s radicalisation, and the emergency response on the day.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT Sloan Management Review: AI on the Front Lines. “AI progress can stall when end users resist adoption. Developers must think beyond a project’s business benefits and ensure that end users’ workflow concerns are addressed.”

New York Times: I Followed Some of Brazil’s Right-Wing Telegram Groups. I Found a Tide of Madness.. “In Brazil, fake news seems to be something that the population at large seems to fall victim to — Telegram just offers the sort of deepest rabbit hole you can go down. So I knew — from horrible, eye-sapping experience — that for many right-wing activists, fake news has become an article of faith, a weapon of war, the surest way of muddling the public discussion.”

WIRED: The Infinite Deaths of Social Media. “Hyperbole is instinctual on Twitter. So it was not surprising to hear of an apocalypse foretold: that the eccentric and polarizing billionaire planned to transform the site into a troll’s paradise under the guise of free speech (one with better tools and unencumbered by moderators), creating a domino effect that would spark a mass exodus of the Twitter faithful. Prognosticators warned of a migration so impactful that the very site would lose what has made it an essential resource for untold communities of people. But endings can also be an animating force. In fact, endings are a primary context in which the social web should be understood.” Good morning, Internet…

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